


try not to forget this, will you?

by mathonwys



Category: Sonic the Hedgehog (Video Games)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, Sonic Forces, Time Travel, Trans Female Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-10
Updated: 2017-07-10
Packaged: 2018-11-30 12:19:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,968
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11463462
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mathonwys/pseuds/mathonwys
Summary: "She'd only been fourteen when Green Hill was under siege, but it was the sort of thing you never forgot." // ficlet based off the short-lived theory that Dr. Eggman had kidnapped Classic Sonic! includes trans girl Sonic because i'm a force to be reckoned with





	try not to forget this, will you?

**Author's Note:**

> this was intended to be set in "Chaosverse", aka our take on the Sonic setting! as such, this has trans girl Sonic :>
> 
> before e3, there was a theory being passed around on TVTropes (and potentially elsewhere) that the appearance of Classic Sonic was a sort of Samurai Jack situation? namely that Eggman had kidnapped Classic and booted him into the future so that he could take over the world unimpeded. we ended up talking about this to a good friend of ours, and came up with the fact that it would make more sense-- in our setting, at least-- if Eggman had taken the _Chaos Emeralds_ instead, way before Sonic could stop him.
> 
> also Silver and Blaze are here because... why not? (and mostly because Sonic 06 didn't take place during Chaosverse but we wanted to include them SOMEHOW)

It was hard to remember a time before Eggman ruled the world. Oliver had stopped trying to; the thought made her feel all twisted up inside, like a coiled spring, and that fierce energy was something she had no idea what to do with. What _could_ she do with it? It's not like a single person could hope to stand up against a world-encompassing empire, no matter how much she wanted to try. So that was the end of that: Oliver lived her life on a day-by-day basis, fighting back those feelings and just doing what she could to stay alive in a world destroyed.

At least, until one day she'd heard voices. Oliver stood rooted to the spot, for a moment terrified someone had found her; when there was no bright searchlights or gunfire or synthesized alerts, she found herself able to move again and slowly crept towards the sound. They weren't too far away-- she didn't have to strain to hear them at all, especially once she drew closer-- and finally Oliver came to an alleyway that she risked a peek inside of. At the other end, up against a wall, were two people she'd never seen before. Their state of anxiety and ruffled fur indicated that they'd been on the run, like she was; still, their state of dress was nothing like she knew from her years of bouncing from city to city. It wasn't really the sort of thing she'd call _futuristic_ , more like... post-apocalyptic? Tattered clothes of lots of drab greys with shreds of coloured accents.

"--we've totally missed the mark," the white hedgehog had been saying when she first heard their voices. As she'd approached, she'd heard the purple cat next to them say "This is as close as we can get with that anomaly, we'll just have to work with it." only for the other to shoot back "Work with it?! Everything's still destroyed! We-- we need to go back further!"

"Silver!" the cat snapped. Oliver pressed against the wall and watched as the cat grabbed the hedgehog by the shoulders. "You need to calm down! There's no use forcing it-- this is as far back as we can go!" The hedgehog-- Silver-- looked about ready to argue, but the cat pressed on. "All we need to do-- all we _can_ do-- is focus on why we came here in the first place. We **need** to find her."

Silver took in a few deep breaths. "Right," he mumbled, and Oliver had to focus to catch it. "We need to find her. ...Where do we start? If we were in the right time, we could've just gone to Green Hill before the invasion even started, but she's probably been on the move since then..."

"There has to be a reason we're here instead of there," his friend stated like it was obvious. "Chaos has a way of making things go the way they're supposed to-- even **with** the Emeralds gone. This isn't what we planned, but... maybe there's something here we need to find? Maybe even something about the anomaly?"

Oliver blinked as she tried to take everything in. Were these... time travelers? It sounded ridiculous, but at the same time it was the only thing that made sense. 

Silver gently pushed them away and started to head out of the alley. Oliver scrambled back and hoped that she was away from his notice; out of sight from her, the cat's ears twitched before they followed their friend. "We just... need to find **something** ," he conceded. "Anything at all... anything that'd fix this. Sonic **_needs_** to stop Dr. Robotnik."

_Sonic?_

Silver and the cat whirled around to stare at Oliver. Oh, heck, she'd said that out loud. They both looked about as shocked as she did; Silver mouthed something that she hazarded was along the lines of "are you seeing what I'm seeing?" and the cat nudged him hard in reply. Oliver weighed her options. She only got to take a few steps in the other direction before Silver yelled "Wait!" and she was off the ground in the midst of a hazy teal glow. Oliver stared helplessly as she was pulled back over with surprising care to come face-to-face with the time travelers again.

The cat stepped forward. "You're Sonic the Hedgehog, aren't you? From South Island?"

Oliver swallowed. "I-- Yeah. Yeah, that's me." Not that she'd been called that in years. Silver's face lit up with barely-contained excitement, and she could see that the cat was struggling to hold back their own reaction.

"I'm Blaze," she said, "and this is Silver. Put her down," she hissed under her breath at him, and he obliged. To her credit, Oliver didn't try to run this time. "We're from... about 200 years in the future from now."

"Even after Dr. Robotnik died," Silver cut in, "his robot legion was able to keep his rule going for at least another fifty years before wear-and-tear got to them. But after that, civilization had already been destroyed..."

Oliver stared at them. "...so you're here to, what, undo all of that?"

"Um, h-hopefully!" Silver stuttered. "We don't-- we don't really, uh, know what we're doing, but-- but--"

Blaze put a hand over his mouth. "We're here to fix things, yes. The only way to save our future is by saving your present, Sonic."

She looked like she was going to say more, but Oliver interjected. "Why do you keep calling me that? The last time I was called 'Sonic' was-- was five years ago. How do you even know about that, or-- or how do you know who I _am_?"

"We did a lot of research before we made the jump back," Blaze answered. "And we found two factors that needed to be changed to undo our future. One: Dr. Robotnik must **not** get the Chaos Emeralds."

"And two," Silver said after yanking Blaze's hand away from his face, " **you** need to go back to being the Hero of Mobius."

What? Oliver stared at them both with rising incredulity. "No--?! No way! I'm-- I'm not a hero, I'm just some dumb teenager! And besides, even GUN is having trouble holding off Eggman now. If the **military** can't fight him, how am I supposed to?! Look, you must be looking for some other Sonic--"

"--We're not the only time travelers," Silver interrupted. Oliver shut up.

Blaze gave him a grateful look before continuing what she'd been trying to say. "We don't know how he did this, but Dr. Robotnik went back in time from now to five years ago on South Island. He was able to collect all seven of the Chaos Emeralds unchallenged, and with their unlimited power he could do anything he wanted. But after that, he went out of his way to personally humiliate someone because he knew they didn't stand a chance against him without the Emeralds on their side."

"He knew you wouldn't remember him with the timeline changed, but he still showed off to you," Silver said with utter sincerity. "That _has_ to mean something. Even if you're a nobody after he changed time, he still wanted to make sure you knew you lost! Why would he do that if you weren't a threat to him in the first place? Sonic, he wanted to break your spirit. He wanted to make sure you would never, **ever** feel like you could stand up to him."

"But you can. You're the only one that can."

She'd only been fourteen when Green Hill was under siege, but it was the sort of thing you never forgot. It happened almost out of nowhere, the thundering sound of mechs approaching like titans only giving the townsfolk a short warning, then the sound of gunfire and actual fire as Eggman's robots swarmed the zone as the sky itself darkened from the fleet of airships blotting out the sun. She'd tried to run, back then. It was the one thing she was good at. Her uncle had yelled something at her retreating form, but despite her speed she couldn't change course fast enough to swerve past the massive fist that seized her.

Oliver had shrieked as she went from ground level to several stories up as the towering mech raised her up to "eye level"; the cockpit opened up and the to-be dictator himself had stepped up on the edge to look her over with a look that still gave her chills as she remembered. And he'd addressed her, but he hadn't called her Oliver. "Well well well, if it isn't Sonic the Hedgehog," he'd said, and Oliver had felt every muscle in her body freeze. Her mouth had hung open, but Eggman kept speaking without waiting to see if she would say anything.

"You've given me a lot of trouble, you little blue rat," and she still had no idea what he meant by that, "but how the tables have turned, hm?" He'd reached down and flicked a control with a casual air, and Oliver had let out a choked gasp as the robot's grip tightened enough that she hoped she was imagining the sound of a rib cracking. "Hm, what to do..." He watched her, lost in thought, and Oliver tried to say something but she'd missed that window entirely-- she could barely wheeze in enough air to keep herself alive, let alone get words out. Still deep in whatever thoughts were running through his head, Eggman had slouched back in the mech's cockpit and started doing something she couldn't see.

At least, she couldn't see what he was doing, but she could definitely see the results: the mech's other arm rose up and leveled an enormous gun at her. Oliver's feeble struggling had grown in intensity, but what good was a teenage hedgehog against several thousand tons of machinery? The gun's muzzle lit up with a shifting rainbow hue of light, and suddenly her heart was pounding faster than she'd ever felt it; her vision went dark around the edges, and while she could feel the pain starting at her fingers and toes and working its way through her entire body like it was waiting to rip her apart it seemed like it had been taking place miles away. He hadn't even fired yet, why--?!

Then it was gone. The gun had been lowered, and the mech set her down (not gently, but she could breathe again even if she couldn't get herself to stand up). "No, I think I'll keep you alive," Eggman had said through the robot's speakers. "Not like you can do anything to me!" The memory faded with one last shot of the army retreating like it had just been a stroll in the park, with Eggman's voice continuing: "Ta ta, Sonic! Try not to forget this, will you? It'd be a shame if my nemesis forgot her own defeat."

That had been five years ago, and none of it made any sense to her even after that amount of time. But now these two strangers were staring at her with pleading eyes and asking her to be a hero. No, not just asking. They were **telling** her she was a hero. That she had been, and she'd had that taken away from her. That that brilliant rainbow energy-- the result of the Chaos Emeralds-- had been the one thing that could've stopped him, that maybe could've let **her** stop him, only for it to have been snatched away before she even knew it existed.

Oliver-- Sonic-- didn't need to think long about what to do. "I'm in," she said. Silver and Blaze stared at her a moment, their desperation transformed into surprise, as she stretched her arms over her head and broke out into a grin. "So! Where do I start?"


End file.
